The light step of a carriage horse, effortlessly towing
a sleigh across snow-covered ground; the gut-splitting buck of a bronco;
the confident poise of a general's mount at the battlefield's edge; the
freedom of hooves, breaking fast and pounding across the open plain --
horses have captivated American artists for centuries, inspiring works
of art that in turn have inspired us. As Lexington celebrates the Alltech
FEI World Equestrian Games, The Art Museum of the University of Kentucky
is proud to present this exhibition, which chronicles the dynamic role
of the horse in our country's art and history.

The beauty and elegance of a horse is undeniable. It
is seen in the lingering attention John Trumbull devotes to George Washington's
mount or in the glistening musculature of racehorses depicted by Edward
Troye and Franklin Voss. But the image of the horse has also played a meaningful
role in our cultural history, from the Revolutionary period to the present
day. Horses were crucial to building the United States. They have carried
generals into battle, forged the trail of westward expansion, hustled for
cowboys, and sprinted under jockeys for cheering fans. Today, horses continue
to fuel an economic industry but are also valued simply for the way they
enrich our daily lives.

Curated by Ingrid Cartwright, assistant professor of
art history at Western Kentucky University, this exhibition and the accompanying
catalogue trace the many ways the horse has been pictured in American art
and what this magnificent animal has meant to Americans over time. Heroes:
The Horse on the Battlefield chronicles American military leaders and
their horses; Hoofbeats: The Horse as a Symbol of Freedom investigates
the American ideal of the wild, free horse and the cowboy; Horse Power:
The Horse at Work in America includes workhorses that helped build
our nation; and Heartbeats: America's Romance with Horses reveals
how horses have been a source of recreation and personal inspiration to
us all.

This exhibition and catalogue is made possible with the
generous support of our Presenting Sponsor, the Friends of the Art Museum
at the University of Kentucky. We are also grateful for the support of
the Keeneland Foundation, UK HealthCare, Wimbledon Farm, The William A.
Marquard Family Foundation, Becky Faulconer, James Kenan, Angel Levas,
Mrs. Richard Cooper and James C. Albesetti.

The image of a leader on horseback has deep historical
roots, echoing back to the equestrian statues of ancient Rome. Over the
centuries, artists rekindled the tradition of depicting military leaders
on horseback, sparking associations with imperial greatness and conveying
a message about the rider's talent for good governance. "As one spurs
on a horse and leads it where he wants," reads a famous adage, "so
shall the rider lead the people according to his will." In these paintings
and sculptures of American leaders on horseback, artists emphasize riders
who manage their horses with the same steady confidence and control needed
to guide the reins of a great nation.

Rembrandt Peale's portrait of George Washington, a noted
horseman (possibly atop Blueskin, a favorite steed) portrays the first
president in a pose that highlights his control over his mount. Ancient
Greek generals trained their horses to perform highly skilled maneuvers
like rearing and striking on command, which could be used as a surprise
tactic to unseat the enemy. The practice of training horses to perform
powerful but deliberate movements was revived in Europe in the Renaissance,
gaining favor as a courtly pastime for leaders and aristocrats who esteemed
this art of haut école (high school riding). Washington appears
to be performing one of these precise movements here -- the renvers,
or haunches- in, a movement that is still a part of modern dressage competition
today. Washington's dignified pose and pinpoint control over the gray horse
would have added to his aura as a gentlemanly hero and able leader. Ralph
Earl's portrait of Andrew Jackson on Sam Patch appears to capture the same
movement, and it is likely that both paintings refer to the same European
precedent.

Advances in long-range weaponry made grand equine battles
largely obsolete by the 1800s, but painters still gloried in the drama
of horses at full pitch. By the last decades of the nineteenth century,
photography proved that horses did not run with their legs spread outwardly
in a "flying gallop." Although artists understood this was not
an accurate representation, the tradition persisted, likely because it
connoted the eminent fury of a horseback battle and the courageous physical
challenge from which only a real hero could rise.

Hoofbeats: The Horse as a Symbol
of Freedom

"I knew the railroad was coming," Frederic
Remington wrote in 1905, recalling his trip west decades earlier to Montana
as a hardy nineteen-year old, "...I knew the wild riders and the vacant
land were about to vanish forever, and the more I considered the subject,
the bigger the Forever loomed." Remington's desire to capture what
remained of wild America mirrored a sentiment shared by many late-nineteenth
and early-twentieth century American artists, as the memory of an uncharted
frontier faded into history. Lamenting the rapidly changing character of
the American landscape, they envisioned this older and wilder era as an
antidote to an increasingly modern and structured America, whose growing
web of cities, factories, trains, and tracks grew more tangled from coast
to coast.

The horse was a living emblem of a rougher, less-civilized
nation, not only as the companion of cowboys and frontiersmen, but also
as a wild and willful animal that resisted the shackles of man and desired,
above all, to live unbounded in endless open spaces. At the same time,
the horse's innate wildness amounted to a last opportunity for conquest
in an increasingly urban nation with few remaining places to be explored
and mapped. In painting and sculpture of this era, we see images of horses
breaking free across the open prairie, but also scenes of wild horses being
rounded up and new mounts being broken in.

For artists like Remington and Charles M. Russell, the
horse's innate wildness was a favorite theme. Both excelled in dramatic
scenes of breaking in, which often suggested a literal breaking of horse
or rider. In the case of Russell's Bronc to Breakfast, it includes
the destruction of much of the camp's mess brigade as a madly bucking horse
tries to throw its rider while trampling the makings of the morning meal.
Remington's Bronco Buster, an icon of this genre, depicts a horse
in a similar moment of fury as it protests its rider's attempt at domestication.

Horse Power: The Horse at Work in
America

From the colonial era until the early twentieth century,
American life revolved around horses in both commerce and transport, and
as one of our country's greatest natural resources. Workhorses were needed
for the smallest and largest of tasks -- from a simple trip to the market
to the construction of roads, the cultivation of crops, the herding of
livestock, the delivery of mail, and the transportation of settlers and
goods from coast to coast. They were the nation's most ubiquitous utility,
yet still less present in the public imagination than their flashier relatives
on the racecourse, in the show ring, or harnessed to fine carriages that
marked status for stylish society.

In art, the image of the working horse reflects the great
physical effort necessary to build the nation, as well as the perseverance,
bravery, and patience this monumental task required. Painters and sculptors
took great care to emphasize the workhorses' reliable strength, focusing
on their ample musculature, powerful hooves, and sheer size while also
pointing toward their tractable nature and ability to perform tasks willingly
and readily. Images of cowboys and trappers often show close relationships
between horse and rider. In paintings like Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait's Trapper
Looking Out, the rider and his keen gray horse appear to be dedicated
partners, pursuing their goal together.

For much of the nineteenth century, workhorses were symbols
of the virtues of hard work and progress, though this perspective changed
dramatically in the industrial era. Placed aside new gasoline and electric-powered
automobiles and trucks, workhorses now appeared outdated, unpredictable,
and inefficient. Anti-horse sentiment in many cities pointed to the horse
as a major source of urban blight, which, along with waste and dirt, included
public nuisances like odors and flies. Others were more sympathetic, as
newly founded animal rights groups like the American Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) lobbied for less abuse of and greater care
for equine laborers. Despite the changing times, the role of the workhorse
in America was long lived; horses were used for heavy hauling in cities
through the 1920s and beyond, and served widely in other labor roles-particularly
agricultural-through the middle of the twentieth century.

Heartbeats: America's Romance with
Horses

In addition to the practical roles horses have played
in American history, they have also been central figures in the private
lives of Americans in sport, leisure, and their imagination. Initially,
it was racing that stoked the country's interest with horses. By the early
nineteenth century, horseracing had become the American sport.
Popular match races drew tens of thousands of spectators and champion horses
rose to superstar status in the press and in the American consciousness.
The Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century stabilized work
schedules and freed weekends, giving the growing middle class more time
to flock to the racecourses. Many spectators were intrigued by the newly
popular sport of harness racing, which had smaller purses than Thoroughbred
races, but charged lower gate fares, making it an affordable alternative
and giving the trotters a truly democratic image.

Prestigious equine events like the Devon and New York
(later National) Horse Shows were established in the 1880s and 1890s, giving
privileged classes a venue to compete in jumping, driving, and showing
in-hand. By the 1900s, horse and livestock showing spread across the country
to county fairs, such as those pictured by American regionalist painters
John Steuart Curry and Harry Louis Freund. These events offered all Americans
opportunities to participate and also served to advance breeding standards
and practices.

Edward Troye, one of the earliest painters of American
racehorses, created portraits of the country's top Thoroughbreds for breeders
in Kentucky and Alabama. Artists like Nicholas Winfield Scott Leighton
and Louis Maurer continued in this genre, presenting racing scenes and
stars, which were frequently offered as prints to the general public by
Currier & Ives. Works like Paul Manship's End of Day and Carl
Rungius' On the Range record how even the simplest of moments shared
with horses -- a stop along the trail or a pause at day's end -- could
be profound and meaningful. Today, horses continue to inspire contemporary
artists like Deborah Butterfield, who finds fresh inspiration and new artistic
possibilities in the equine form.